Kallimachos : The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography.
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Other Authors / Creators: | Wellisch, Hans H. |
Format: | eBook Electronic |
Language: | English |
Imprint: | Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. |
Series: | Wisconsin Studies in Classics Ser.
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Subjects: | |
Local Note: | Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2022. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries. |
Online Access: | Click to View |
Summary: | The famous library of Alexandria, founded around 295 BCE by Ptolemaios I, housed the greatest collection of texts in the ancient world and was a fertile site of Hellenistic scholarship. Rudolf Blum's landmark study, originally published in German in 1977, argues that Kallimachos of Kyrene was not only the second director of the Alexandrian library but also the inventor of two essential scholarly tools still in use to this day: the library catalog and the "biobibliographical" reference work. Kallimachos expanded the library's inventory lists into volumes called the Pinakes , which extensively described and categorized each work and became in effect a Greek national bibliography and the source and paradigm for most later bibliographic lists of Greek literature. Though the Pinakes have not survived, Blum attempts a detailed reconstruction of Kallimachos's inventories and catalogs based on a careful analysis of surviving sources, which are presented here in full translation. |
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Item Description: | Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources. |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (297 pages) |
ISBN: | 9780299131739 |
Author Notes: | Rudolf Blum (1909-98) was library director of the Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt, Germany. Hans H. Wellisch (1920-2004) was professor emeritus of the College of Library and Information Services at the University of Maryland, College Park. |